


afraid

by diminishedmercury



Series: SNBM & RRYN AU [6]
Category: RWBY
Genre: F/M, Implied Past Abuse, Navigating relationships, cock block jaune, mercury still doesn't understand emotion, pyrrha doesn't mind too much, secrets are shared, sorry mercury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-04
Updated: 2020-11-04
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:40:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27388858
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/diminishedmercury/pseuds/diminishedmercury
Summary: “Tournament’s tomorrow,” he says conversationally, laying with Pyrrha on her bed. She lets him lay his head in her lap and bury his face in her abdomen with arms wound tight around her waist. She makes a noncommittal hum, and he can practically see the spaced out expression on her face without needing to look up. It scares him how much he’s become familiar with her expressions.“It is,” she replies back, absentmindedly playing with his hair with one hand and rubbing his back with the other. They still haven’t put a label to this thing. It shouldn’t have bothered him. He wouldn’t allow it to. “We’ll see victory.” At what cost? He thinks bitterly.“You’re not ready to fight.” He says blandly and he feels her hands stall.
Relationships: Mercury Black/Pyrrha Nikos
Series: SNBM & RRYN AU [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1511165
Comments: 2
Kudos: 12





	afraid

**Author's Note:**

> hello, guys! I know it's been a while since I posted, but things have been going lightning fast in my life lately.  
> in apology for my absence, have some good mercury/pyrrha growth and a little bit of silliness
> 
> thanks for the continued support of this au! i really couldn't continue to add on to this au if it weren't for all the lovely people who comment and leave kudos on these short fics :)
> 
> and for anyone lookin for a little easter egg in this au, each title comes from a song and can be made into a playlist  
> home - blue october  
> burned at both ends - motionless in white  
> nine crimes - damien rice  
> stumbling in your footsteps - get scared  
> i want more - kaleo  
> afraid - the neighbourhood

Pyrrha grows tenser with each passing day since that night on the rooftop with her confession. Mercury still has no idea what it is that has burrowed its way underneath her skin, but even Weiss and Blake have started to take notice and shoot her concerned looks when they think she’s not looking. It makes it worse, because Mercury  _ knows  _ that Pyrrha fidgets even more under the added attention. He wants to protect her, wants to figure out what’s wrong, but the only way he’s ever known how to protect involves spilled blood and the loss of life. He hates the feeling of being powerless— but he’s familiar with it,  _ intimately _ so and he finds a way to beat down the panic that swells in his throat the same way he found a way to swallow the abuse his father shoved down his throat.

“Tournament’s tomorrow,” he says conversationally, laying with Pyrrha on her bed. She lets him lay his head in her lap and bury his face in her abdomen with arms wound tight around her waist. She makes a noncommittal hum, and he can practically see the spaced out expression on her face without needing to look up. It scares him how much he’s become familiar with her expressions.

“It is,” she replies back, absentmindedly playing with his hair  with one hand and rubbing his back with the other. They still haven’t put a label to this thing. It shouldn’t have bothered him. He wouldn’t allow it to. “We’ll see victory.”  _ At what cost?  _ He thinks bitterly.

“You’re not ready to fight.” He says blandly and he feels her hands stall.

“ _ Yes,  _ I am,” her hand shakes against his back.

“You’re distracted. You’ll get us hurt. You’ll get  _ yourself _ hurt.” It’s the first time he’s ever really been this frank and dull with her, his tone flat and final. But it’s the only way he knows how to breach the walls she’s built around herself in the past few weeks.

“I—“ her voice tremors with what could be guilt, but Mercury can’t really tell. He couldn’t tell emotions apart very well anymore. “I won’t be a burden.”

He snorts this time, laughing out loud a full-bellied and mocking sound. It’s cruel and mean, but Mercury has never known how to survive being kind and gentle.

“ _ Yes,  _ you will, if you’re out on the field thinking about anything other than winning.” Winning meant surviving another day. Losing wasn’t an option. It never had been for Mercury. He pushes himself up onto his elbows, looking up into angry and hurting eyes with a raised brow. “You can have your secrets, but I don’t want them to risk my ass, your ass, Blake’s ass, or Weiss’ ass. See where I’m coming from?” Her eyes flicker with another unfamiliar emotion.

“You’re cruel,” she whispers. Her eyes look sad. “So cruel.”

“I know,” he says, voice empty and flat.

“Will you stay with me?” She asks, volume barely above an exhale. “Will you stay with me even if I wake up as someone else?” He doesn’t know if he can promise that. He doesn’t know if he can love her how she wants him to— but he aches to try, aches to be good enough for at least her.

“I want to.” It’s not the answer she wants to hear. She looks sad again.

“But you won’t.” She finishes for him. He feels anger swell from somewhere deep in his belly. 

“Promises only leave room for disappointment,” he hisses, thinking back to all those times Marcus had promised this was the ‘ _ last time _ ’; there had yet to be one and only distance had made the pain come to a close.

“Is that what you really think?” She asks, her voice filled with revelation and shock. He feels like he’s cornered himself, feels like he needs to  _ run _ , feels like he needs to deflect. But he can’t, so he stays silent and lets her answer the question for herself, while he makes flighty glances towards the door of their dorm room. Her hands are in view before she touches him, cupping his cheeks softly as so many times she’d done before. “I won’t do that to you,” She breathes, eyes sad and cloudy with empathy. He doesn’t know how to process it. He barely knows how to process the panic that wells up and catches in his throat.

“Maybe.” He answers. “I don’t know that.” He can’t even trust Weiss to keep a promise.

“I know,” She answers back, kindly. It’s too much and he can’t handle it. He pushes away her hands and practically curls in on himself, turning his back to her and looking over his shoulder. It’s the only way he can express any form of trust without breaking into pieces that won’t fit back together again. “Can I touch you?” She asks.

“No.” He answers, too quickly. He sees her recoil, but she doesn’t make a move to touch him. “Tell me your secret and I'll tell ya mine.”

She sighs. “Mercury—”

“Don’t give me bullshit like ‘ya don’t have to,’ Pyrrha. I  _ do  _ if that’s what will get ya talkin’.” He rolls his eyes, bouncing his metal calf off the side of the mattress where it hangs off the side of the bed. She falls quiet and they sit in a tense silence for a good minute or two.

“Do you believe in fairy tales?”

“Not really.” He used to though. He remembers laying awake in Weiss’ bed while she read from a huge book filled with them before he had ever learned how to read. Books scared him. He still couldn’t read at a level expected of someone his age, so he stuck towards the picture books and comics that spilled red across their pages.

“If I told you they had some truth to them, would you believe me?” She sighs again, as if expecting his previous answer. As if this was the reason she hadn’t opened up about this before. It gives him reason to pause and think. He’d normally call bullshit if anyone else were telling him this, including Weiss, but Pyrrha wasn’t the type to play around or believe fantastical tales without being given a reason to believe in them. He motions for her to continue. “The… The maidens are real.”

“Well, shit.” He can’t come up with a better response. Something clicks in his head from that first night they’d talked about this. “And someone asked ya to do something with the maidens?”

“I wish it ended there,” Her shoulders fall under the weight that rests there. “I’ve been asked to become a maiden.”

He turns back to her slowly, an incredulous look on his face. It was a lot to try and wrap his head around at one time, but he was an assassin— he was expected to not ask questions and simply do as he was told. And while Pyrrha hadn’t  _ told  _ him to do anything, he already knew what had to be done. He needed to protect her. Whether it be from magical, mythical maidens come to life or someone else trying to create her into something she wasn’t.

“Someone hurt her, Mercury… Badly…” She trails off and he can make the connections in his head. She didn’t like to see others suffering. He couldn’t relate.

“So the big baddies coming after the maidens would probably come after you if you became one?” She nods. There’s fear in her eyes, one of the only emotions he can recognize in an instant. He’s seen it so often. “Okay.”

“ _ Okay? _ ”

“Okay, I’ll kill them if they try somethin’.” He answers.

“Mercury!”

“That’s my secret,” He states plainly. “I was trained as an assassin by a piece of shit father and landed myself a place as Weiss’ bodyguard because my piece of shit father worked for  _ her  _ piece of shit father. Pretty simple, huh?” There was so much more that he was leaving out. So much more that he could say. But he couldn’t say the words out loud. It made it too real. It made the pain unbearable. “I’ve killed for a lesser reason, Pyrrha.”

“Killed…” She looks at him with another emotion he can’t place. “Do you regret it?” She sounds curious and not quite as judgemental as he’d expected.

“Doesn’t really matter.” He settles on. He doesn’t know.

“It does!” She insists.

“Maybe? Doesn’t matter what I had to do. I survived.”

“ _ Please  _ let me touch you,” She pleads and he doesn’t know if he can handle it still. He’s ripped open his chest and bared half of it to her. He’s never had to tell someone— Weiss just  _ knew  _ because she was involved. Blake had no idea who he actually was. He didn’t have other friends. He barely nods and steels himself for the snakes that will crawl beneath his skin. They come with a dependability that he takes comfort in when she slips her arms around his waist and rests her head against his shoulder blades. He squirms. He feels wet patches forming in the fabric of his shirt that stick to his skin like venom. “I still love you.”

It’s a punch to the gut. All the air leaves his lungs and he can’t breathe. There’s a lump that forms deep in his throat, threatening to kill him. “Don’t—” He tries to say something, but he doesn’t know what. The panic wells up higher in his body than he’s ever felt it, reaching up to catch little tears that he doesn’t bid to fall. “Don’t say that,” He chokes out.  _ Because I can’t say it back. _

She doesn’t say anything, only soothes him with the comfort of her touch, rubbing circles into his stomach with one hand and letting the other rest over where his heart should have been. He breathes through the pain and tries to get control over his leaking eyes again. It doesn’t work. He cries silently for what feels like an eternity, Pyrrha’s own tears continuing to wet his back. He’s exhausted by the time the waterworks finally come to a close for both of them, and he realizes this was the first time he’d cried in seven years (his legs, he thinks, that was the last time he’d allowed himself to cry).

His shaky hand reaches up to his chest, takes her own into it, and links their fingers together. “We’ll keep ya safe,” He whispers. “Even if ya turn out a little bitchier.”

She laughs at the small bit of humor that he’s managed to find in such a hopeless situation. “Thank you.” She pauses for just a moment. “... Is now a bad time to ask you to the dance?”

“Yep,” He snorts. “I’ll consider it if I can give ya head, though.”

“Mercury!” She hisses, smacking his hip gently.

“What? Tellin’ me it’s not even a  _ little  _ tempting?”

“I can’t believe you’re thinking about sex right now,” She groans, though there’s hidden laughter in her tone.

“I can,” He snorts again, peeling away her hands from his body to turn around and fully face her again. “Is that a  _ no _ ?”

“... That’s a ‘if you take me to buy a pretty dress.’”

“Deal!” He laughs, full-bellied and loud and true mirth. 

* * *

There’s a knock at their door just as Mercury tries to move his hands to cup Pyrrha’s thighs that same day and they both stare at each other. Mercury is the one to eventually stand up and open it. The last thing he was expecting was Jaune Arc standing outside their door with a guitar in hand.

“Weeeiiissss!” He sings loudly and off-key. “Will you goooo to the dance with meeee?” He strums the guitar.

“... She’s not here, bud.” Pyrrha giggles behind him with a wave and a little ‘hello Jaune!’ to the blonde outside the door. “Ya kinda just killed my groove.”

“Groove?” Jaune looks between him and Pyrrha quickly. Once. Twice. Thrice. “Oooooh! I-I’ll just be leaving now, have a nice day!” He’s quick to scram once the dots connect in his head.

“... So, guess I’m  _ really  _ not giving ya head after that, huh?”

“Nope,” She giggles again. “But you can take me to get food from the cafeteria.”

“Ugh. Fine.”


End file.
